Periodic Reporting for period 1 - DOMINO (Harnessing the microbial potential of fermented foods for healthy and sustainable food systems)
Reporting period: 2023-03-01 to 2024-08-31
Recent scientific hypotheses suggest that a diet enriched with fermented food would have a beneficial effect on health thanks to a succession of interrelated effects (i.e. the DOMINO effect) like the interaction of food microbiota with the intestinal microbiota, the nutritional added value of the food or how molecules resulting from the fermentation process would trigger healthy stimulating physiological signals. Finding scientific evidences relating to this positive relationship requires specific dedicated nutritional studies and a good interpretation of the healthy state of the gut microbiome.
Furthermore, European diets do not adequately prioritise sustainability and health impacts. In Europe, fermented foods from animal-based products (e.g. cheese, yogurt, salami) are part of long traditions and are more widely consumed than plant-based fermented foods (e.g. table olives, sauerkraut). Existing and innovative plant-based fermented products (such those produced from pulses, cereals, vegetables or food industry waste residues) can be of major importance in the transition from an animal- to more plant-based diet, and in so doing to provide associated health and sustainability benefits. However, this transition can be realistic only if analytical approaches are optimized to harness the natural existing diversity of food microbial strains and to provide a rational strategy to select healthy microbial solutions with specific traits associated with each type of food.
At last, the innovation potential of these new plant-based fermented food as well as their implementation in the regular diet of EU citizens will depend on how the different stakeholders will federate to promote their development. Acceptability of the new microbial solutions by consumers as well as their trust in the food science process will also be key.
To reach these impacts, DOMINO project has set the following objectives:
#1 To establish the impact of fermented food consumption on Human health using milk kefir as a target food product and by setting a long-term (~6 months) nutritional trial to better focus on health-related biomarkers.
#2 To create a research and innovation workflow to facilitate the smart design of six different functional healthy plant-based fermented foods using the leverage of food microbiomes’ biodiversity and multi-disciplinary approaches including high-throughput food microbial ecology data and mathematical modelling.
#3 To produce a knowledge-based logical frame (decision framework) of analytical strategies to facilitate health risk/benefit assessment of any fermented food and their tailor-made microbial consortia.
#4 To establish an open-source innovative food-associated microbiome resource and toolkit to support food microbiome research, innovation and impact on Human health.
#5 To federate key stakeholders and citizens through several country-specific multi-actor living-labs. These activities will be scaled around the fermented food prototypes developed in the project to engage actors in a targeted and interactive way that foster dialogue and co-creation.
Furthermore, European diets do not adequately prioritise sustainability and health impacts. In Europe, fermented foods from animal-based products (e.g. cheese, yogurt, salami) are part of long traditions and are more widely consumed than plant-based fermented foods (e.g. table olives, sauerkraut). Existing and innovative plant-based fermented products (such those produced from pulses, cereals, vegetables or food industry waste residues) can be of major importance in the transition from an animal- to more plant-based diet, and in so doing to provide associated health and sustainability benefits. However, this transition can be realistic only if analytical approaches are optimized to harness the natural existing diversity of food microbial strains and to provide a rational strategy to select healthy microbial solutions with specific traits associated with each type of food.
At last, the innovation potential of these new plant-based fermented food as well as their implementation in the regular diet of EU citizens will depend on how the different stakeholders will federate to promote their development. Acceptability of the new microbial solutions by consumers as well as their trust in the food science process will also be key.
To reach these impacts, DOMINO project has set the following objectives:
#1 To establish the impact of fermented food consumption on Human health using milk kefir as a target food product and by setting a long-term (~6 months) nutritional trial to better focus on health-related biomarkers.
#2 To create a research and innovation workflow to facilitate the smart design of six different functional healthy plant-based fermented foods using the leverage of food microbiomes’ biodiversity and multi-disciplinary approaches including high-throughput food microbial ecology data and mathematical modelling.
#3 To produce a knowledge-based logical frame (decision framework) of analytical strategies to facilitate health risk/benefit assessment of any fermented food and their tailor-made microbial consortia.
#4 To establish an open-source innovative food-associated microbiome resource and toolkit to support food microbiome research, innovation and impact on Human health.
#5 To federate key stakeholders and citizens through several country-specific multi-actor living-labs. These activities will be scaled around the fermented food prototypes developed in the project to engage actors in a targeted and interactive way that foster dialogue and co-creation.
A longitudinal nutritional study has been launched in parallel in three countries (United Kingdom, Italy and France) with the aim to provide insight into the impact on Human health of a long-term diet (6 months) with milk kefir, a traditional, widely consumed fermented food with high microbial diversity (around ten species). This study is targeting healthy adults and adults suffering from metabolic syndrome to better focus and health biomarkers and establish if consumption leads to improve clinical outcomes in this cohort.
Several plant-based fermented food prototypes (from vegetables, olives, pulses, cereals or apple pomace) were studied with the objective to collect their natural microbial resources and to characterize the genomic content for understanding their potential of metabolic interaction during fermentation. The data obtained was instrumental to perform consortia-level genome-scale modelling for the design of simplified consortia adapted to each food product.
Meanwhile, the first version of the open Food Microbiome database (FMD) was released with enhanced ontology and functional profiles, allowing the scientific community to get access to the widest metagenomic toolkit for food products including 2,533 metagenomes and thousands of metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) from food-born microbial strains.
Finally, six living-labs were formed across EU countries (Estonia, Germany/Austria, France, Ireland, Italy, Spain) to set-up activities for a multi-actor co-creation pathway around the fermented food prototypes studied. The phase 1 of these living-labs (sharing the vision) has been carried out around several consumer focus groups and then with the construction of around 30 multi-stakeholder sessions chosen from the stakeholders’ networks assembled during the first stage of the project. To broaden this vision, a market assessment was also conducted focusing on innovations in beverages and meat substitutes across five EU countries.
Several plant-based fermented food prototypes (from vegetables, olives, pulses, cereals or apple pomace) were studied with the objective to collect their natural microbial resources and to characterize the genomic content for understanding their potential of metabolic interaction during fermentation. The data obtained was instrumental to perform consortia-level genome-scale modelling for the design of simplified consortia adapted to each food product.
Meanwhile, the first version of the open Food Microbiome database (FMD) was released with enhanced ontology and functional profiles, allowing the scientific community to get access to the widest metagenomic toolkit for food products including 2,533 metagenomes and thousands of metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) from food-born microbial strains.
Finally, six living-labs were formed across EU countries (Estonia, Germany/Austria, France, Ireland, Italy, Spain) to set-up activities for a multi-actor co-creation pathway around the fermented food prototypes studied. The phase 1 of these living-labs (sharing the vision) has been carried out around several consumer focus groups and then with the construction of around 30 multi-stakeholder sessions chosen from the stakeholders’ networks assembled during the first stage of the project. To broaden this vision, a market assessment was also conducted focusing on innovations in beverages and meat substitutes across five EU countries.
After this first reporting period of 18 months, DOMINO project has already produced key results to significantly consolidate long-term impact at the scientific, economical and societal levels.
DOMINO was successful in setting-up a unique long-term nutritional trial in three EU country with a single fermented product. While this study is still ongoing, we expect our result to allow identification of healthy gut microbiota biomarkers highly relevant to a diet based on fermented food. This will have a strong potential to increase awareness of fermented food-based diet to increase Human health.
DOMINO provided a detailed knowledge on the ecology of microbial communities involved in various plant-based fermented foods. This will represent the basis for further use of these microbial resources in the design, within DOMINO, of fermented food prototypes obtained through fermentation of new plant materials. However, the knowledge will also offer the food industry opportunities to optimize, tailor-make and leverage existing processes and new fermentation techniques making them more competitive in the market. To this direction, the open-access computational methods and database for gut and food metagenomic analysis along with the Food Microbiome Database (FMD) will enable researchers and SME’s to quickly and easily gain knowledge in the microbial ecology of fermented foods, helping reducing the cost in novel product development.
DOMINO achieved the integration of consumers and stakeholders of the food system in the innovation process through the continuous development of the six EU living-labs to assure that food system innovators had raised interest in the six food case studies.
DOMINO also provided several multi-disciplinary capacity building workshops like the training of Microbiologists to theories of living-labs, to responsible research and innovation and to guide them in establishing a multi-actor network. Similarly, food scientists and microbiologists were trained in genome-scale mathematical modelling for the design of microbial consortia.
Finally, DOMINO worked in collaboration with other EU projects to set-up the Microbes4SustainableFood consortium within the Food2030 network to ensure and maximize the outcomes of these various project, to share a vision on open and FAIR data and to organised jointly communication and dissemination events.
DOMINO was successful in setting-up a unique long-term nutritional trial in three EU country with a single fermented product. While this study is still ongoing, we expect our result to allow identification of healthy gut microbiota biomarkers highly relevant to a diet based on fermented food. This will have a strong potential to increase awareness of fermented food-based diet to increase Human health.
DOMINO provided a detailed knowledge on the ecology of microbial communities involved in various plant-based fermented foods. This will represent the basis for further use of these microbial resources in the design, within DOMINO, of fermented food prototypes obtained through fermentation of new plant materials. However, the knowledge will also offer the food industry opportunities to optimize, tailor-make and leverage existing processes and new fermentation techniques making them more competitive in the market. To this direction, the open-access computational methods and database for gut and food metagenomic analysis along with the Food Microbiome Database (FMD) will enable researchers and SME’s to quickly and easily gain knowledge in the microbial ecology of fermented foods, helping reducing the cost in novel product development.
DOMINO achieved the integration of consumers and stakeholders of the food system in the innovation process through the continuous development of the six EU living-labs to assure that food system innovators had raised interest in the six food case studies.
DOMINO also provided several multi-disciplinary capacity building workshops like the training of Microbiologists to theories of living-labs, to responsible research and innovation and to guide them in establishing a multi-actor network. Similarly, food scientists and microbiologists were trained in genome-scale mathematical modelling for the design of microbial consortia.
Finally, DOMINO worked in collaboration with other EU projects to set-up the Microbes4SustainableFood consortium within the Food2030 network to ensure and maximize the outcomes of these various project, to share a vision on open and FAIR data and to organised jointly communication and dissemination events.